Things that you just should NOT laugh at.

[HeebyJeebyLeebee]

BG:  My elder sister, Sissy, is 11 years older than me.  So I got to witness a lot of her and her friend's "milestones" years before I was approaching my own. 

I was about 14 and attending the wedding of one of Sissy's best friends, Betsy.  Sissy was the matron of honor, so she's standing at the front of the church very close to the bride.  The wedding was in the groom's hometown, so the priest must not have been very familiar with Betsy.  He kept calling her "Betty."  We could see Betsy trying to stifle a few giggles, and could also see Sissy slowing moving from "annoyed" to "hopping mad" as the Catholic full mass wedding proceeded.

Eventually, Sissy couldn't contain herself, and leaned in toward the priest and tried to whisper "It's BETSY.  Get it right!"

Except my sister can't whisper when she's mad - it came out more like a growl.  The first few rows heard her loud & clear. 

Mom was squeezing my leg trying to keep me from laughing while trying her best to stifle her own giggles.   

[hermanne]

I have one group of girlfriends I have known FOREVER! For-ev-ah!

Teasing, zinging and good natured insults are our way of saying we love each other.  You know you've been accepted into the circle when you start giving you a hard time.

That said.  One of my best zingers ever was when I was visiting S and F (two of my friends from the above mentioned circle).

F was trying to decide what tattoo she wanted and where (note: F is a busty gal and has nursed 3 kids).  I piped up and said "Oh, F! You should get the titanic tattooed across your chest so we can watch it sink!"

S started laughing so hard she fell off the couch and curled into a ball.  F punched me, then cracked up.  Insults were traded and that moment has passed into legendary status.

Oh my gawd.
OH. MY. GAWD.

I have tears coming down my face, that was sooooo funny!
(And I'm a nursing mom, so I can relate!)

[kingsrings]

I read this article about Andrea Boccelli once, and felt very bad for finding humor in it. Details might be a little sketchy, it was a while ago. Apparently, he was born with some kind of medical condition that was somewhat responsible for his slowing going blind as he grew up. But then when he was about an early teen, he was hit on the head by a soccer ball, which caused him to go completely blind. Oh, the irony. Here was this guy already losing his eyesight, and it was like the soccer ball came along and bam - finished the job!

[rhirhi]

Aw man, my friends and I have a bunch of these. The worst are the dead baby ones. One told by a very good friend, who is expecting now, goes:

What's funnier than a dead baby in a clown costume?

(Imagine her >< this close to your face and slightly screaming) There is *nothing* funnier than a dead baby in a clown costume!

Even pregnant, that one made me laugh.

Edited to change color of the joke, JIC.

[Shea]

I belong to the "everything is up for jokes at some point" school of thought because I cope with life by "whistling in the dark." I do try to keep my more offensive humour to myself, but I laugh inappropriately all the time.

My SO, who is Jewish and had relatives die in the Holocaust, once made a Holocaust joke. I gawped at him for a solid 5 seconds at least before laughing. (He's the kind of person who's genuinely kind and generous, but can be really "evil" in his thinking and practical jokes. I call him Stalin. When he recently asked why I call him Stalin, I said because he'd be offended if I called him Hitler. Then we both laughed inappropriately.)

I once worked with an Israeli guy (he'd just finished his military service and he'd been an officer) who had without a doubt the biggest collection of Holocaust jokes known to man. Sick? Extremely. Hilarious? Indeed.

My father and I both have very disturbed senses of humor. My mother does not like dark humor at all. I don't know how she puts up with us.

[DrinkingTea (was Sneezy)]

My sister passed away this past November after a four year long battle after a blood clot that caused her to lose her small intestine, and the complications stemming therefrom.  She also suffered from a few eating disorders over the course of her life that did not make things easier for her (or us, for that matter).  She was especially opposed to bleached white flour and processed sugar.

Nine people got mild food poisoning after her memorial service from tainted cookies.

When I told my surviving sister, she said, 'We're both going to hell, aren't we?  Because I can not stop laughing and you are too quiet not to be laughing yourself.'

[M-theory]

My sister passed away this past November after a four year long battle after a blood clot that caused her to lose her small intestine, and the complications stemming therefrom.  She also suffered from a few eating disorders over the course of her life that did not make things easier for her (or us, for that matter).  She was especially opposed to bleached white flour and processed sugar.

Nine people got mild food poisoning after her memorial service from tainted cookies.

When I told my surviving sister, she said, 'We're both going to hell, aren't we?  Because I can not stop laughing and you are too quiet not to be laughing yourself.'

I'll see you two there, because I just cracked up. That's the kind of irony I want associated with my death.

[kingsrings]

When I heard of Gary Coleman’s passing today, all I could think about was telling someone, and having them answer, ‘Whatchoo talkin’ about, Willis??” Then having that as the title of an article announcing his death, or having it inscribed on his headstone.

[Sirius]

This one is pretty mild compared to the one about Sis, but it still cracks me up all these years later. 

One Easter when I was a teenager back in the early 1970s my family and I were in church.  My little sister was about 5 years old at the time, and she was between me and Older Sis.  We were singing a favorite Easter hymn, and Little Sis couldn't read at the time so she was making up her own words as we went along:

"He Arose, He Arose
Oh, my goodness, Christ arose!"

Older Sis and I looked at each other and started cracking up, resulting in a Mom Look from my mother.  You know the type - one of those meant to shrivel misbehaving children in their shoes.  For the rest of the service it was all I could do to not start laughing again, and if I'd looked over at Older Sis I'd have lost it. 

As we walked out of the church after the service we were leaning on each other, we were laughing so hard.  Mom, of course, had quite a bit to say about us laughing during church, even after we told her why we were laughing.

[whiterose]

There are videos in YouTube featuring Hitler and the SS marching to the Imperial March. I think this tune suits them well. Sorry if anyone finds this offensive- but that is THE background music used nowadays to depict any kind of villain/trouble, and who is more regarded as a universal villain than Hitler and the Nazis?

[vorbau]

Save me a seat in hell, will y'all? Because I have yet to find anything so gross, tasteless or inappropriate that I don't find funny.

- I crack up at "Springtime for Hitler" even though I probably shouldn't (I'm a member of a group Hitler found particularly objectionable).

- I had to bite my tongue bloody at a funeral several years ago. The music was a hymn the deceased (a work colleague) loved, but to which we learned, ahem, alternate lyrics when we were all at a training school together. W, my partner, was sitting next to me and singing the alternate lyrics sotto voce, so that only I could hear.

- We recently had to respond to a death scene that, unfortunately, was clearly a suicide and will be ruled such. I didn't go, but my deputy Mickey did. When he got back to the office, I asked him "What was the COD (Cause of Death)?"

Mickey replied, "BFO."

Me: "BFO? Huh?"

Mickey: "Yeah. Brain Fell Out."

While I laughed till I couldn't breathe, Mickey explained that (WARNING: GROSSNESS ALERT) the deceased shot himself in the head with handgun powerful enough to loft one entire cerebral hemisphere, still whole, out through the exit wound and onto the bedside table.

[M-theory]

While I laughed till I couldn't breathe, Mickey explained that (WARNING: GROSSNESS ALERT) the deceased shot himself in the head with handgun powerful enough to loft one entire cerebral hemisphere, still whole, out through the exit wound and onto the bedside table.

That's what happens when that darn alarm clock finally pushes you too far.

[kitty-cat]

Hey, save me a seat too!

I laugh at everything I should, and everything I shouldn't. My sorority is about half Jewish and half Christian. I have heard some of the most *out there* jokes from the Jewish girls, and I can't help laughing with them.

Of course, one of my best friends from high school and I have a total "Valley Girl" conversation that we have whenever we get together; it just got way more funny since I joined a sorority.

And don't get me started on the fat jokes that I crack....

[DangerMouth]

Vorbau, you just reminded me of when my cousin commited suicide, only it wasn't neat, there were blood and brains everywhere, wall, ceiling, floor. It was Easter Sunday morning, and for some reason it never occurred to my aunt to get one of those bio-cleaning services in. My cousins and I all trooped downstairs with mops and buckets to clean it up.

I can't even remember the jokes we told that day, aside from "he lost his mind- all over the ceiling", but they were many, and baaad, and we laughed ourselves sick.

I love my cousins on my dad's side, we're all twisted in the same way.

[vorbau]

Vorbau, you just reminded me of when my cousin commited suicide, only it wasn't neat, there were blood and brains everywhere, wall, ceiling, floor. It was Easter Sunday morning, and for some reason it never occurred to my aunt to get one of those bio-cleaning services in. My cousins and I all trooped downstairs with mops and buckets to clean it up.

I can't even remember the jokes we told that day, aside from "he lost his mind- all over the ceiling", but they were many, and baaad, and we laughed ourselves sick.

I love my cousins on my dad's side, we're all twisted in the same way.

DangerMouth - I'm so sorry for your loss, and I'm so glad you were able to laugh, both at the time and at my post! I hesitated a long time before posting because I didn't want to offend anyone, but I figured, hey, this is for people who *don't* get offended when most others do.  

My former partner (the one who was singing dirty lyrics during a funeral), W3, started a "bio-recovery" business when he retired. He cleans mostly crime scenes and other grossness (abandoned squats, hoarders, flooded/moldy buildings). You'd love him. He once referred to a scene he cleaned as "the electric slide" (guy took his alarm clock, cut the cord in half, taped each cut end to his chest, and plugged it back in).

We refer to fatal MVA (motor vehicle accidents) as "DRT" (Dead Right There). Once W3 and I had to respond to a motorcycle vs. locomotive accident scene; it wasn't pretty, as the victim was, well, in pieces. W4 called it "DRTTT" meaning "Dead Right There, There and There."   I miss him.

Then there was the accidental death we dubbed "Mothers Against Drunk Vacuuming..."